A great many wave action motors and pumps have been proposed and some have been developed and put in practice. However, it appears at the present writing that very few, if any, of such machines have been universally acclaimed as successful. While the force of waves is obviously very material, there are at least three great difficulties in harnessing these forces, namely, the rise and fall of the tide in any body of water large enough to have significant waves, the irregularity in the amplitute of the waves, and the irregularity in the direction of the waves. The answer to the first problem is of course not at all insurmountable since any floating pumping station will respond to the tides and it is understood that there is no great novelty in the broad concept of making such a wave action machine or pump on a floating platform. It is believed however that little attention has been allocated to the problem of control of the waves as such and to preventing a change of direction of waves from making the device inoperable and the present invention seeks to overcome these problems.